Paul Ryan budget plan triggers wars anew

At this stage, the goal is not to tackle the entire $1.2 trillion in 10-year cuts ordered by the BCA but only the first round of almost $110 billion. The GOP strategy will almost certainly shift the burden from defense, but it’s not clear whetherdomestic appropriations are left still vulnerable to the cuts.

The strategy is to begin slowly: Only about $18.3 billion in savings would come in the first year. But after five years, the cumulative savings would be $116 billion, and after 10 years, more than double that amount.

Text Size

-

+

reset

The Energy and Commerce Committee, which oversees Medicaid and major pieces of the president’s health care reform, is charged with coming up with the greatest savings: $96.76 billion. The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, whose mandate covers federal workers and their retirement system, is next with a 10-year target of $78.9 billion. And the Ways and Means Committee, which oversees Medicare, is asked to find $53 billion with no expectation of taxes being part of the solution.

Elsewhere, the House Judiciary Committee is expected to use the budget challenge as a chance to tackle medical liability reforms that conservatives have long favored.

For the Agriculture Committee, which hopes to write a new farm bill before September, the expedited budget schedule poses both a severe challenge and potential opportunity.

The draft numbers demand $8.2 billion over the first year, $19.7 billion over five years and $33.2 billion over a decade. Indeed, the relatively high first-year number suggests that the budget will assume an early rollback of more generous food stamp benefits first allowed under the 2009 economic stimulus bill.

In terms of core commodity and crop insurance programs, the longer-term savings are considerably more than the draft farm bill negotiated by the House and Senate Agriculture leadership last fall. That measure saved just $23 billion over 10 years, compared with $33.2 billion.

But if a compromise can be found, the Agriculture Committee could find it in its interest to hitch a ride with the budget package so as to get a farm bill across the House floor with a minimum number of amendments.

Leaving himself a little room to bargain, House Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) gave a gentle reminder that farm policy is still his domain. “I would caution people about reading too much into the numbers or policy proposals in either the President’s budget or the Ryan budget,” Lucas said in a statement. “They are only suggestions.”

Readers' Comments (893)

I’m very pleased to see that conservative Republicans are consistent in their desire to dismantle Medicare, destroy Social Security, and to remove or fray every single social safety net the poor rely on in this nation – food stamps, public housing, support for women and infant children, early childhood education, public education, school lunches, immunizations, etc.all

On average, the annual cost for Medicares 46 million enrollees is about $13,000.

The recipients pay total premiums of $1,326 a year for hospital visits and zero for physician services, and can purchase supplementary private Medigap policies that cover virtually all deductibles and co-pays for another $1,500 a year.

So the enrollees pay a total of around $3,000, or 23% of the total $13,000 cost.

Taxpayers cover the balance of $10,000.

Enrollees in the new plan would use the government's contribution to shop from a broad array of private insurance plans offered by a Medicare exchange.

That system is modeled on the highly successful Federal Employee Health Benefits Program, where government workers choose from a wide variety of offerings, from deluxe fee-for-service plans to basic high-deductible programs.

Ryans plan sharply reduces subsidies for the wealthy.

The top 2% of Medicare earners starting in 2022 would get just 30% of the average payment, and the next 6% would get half the average support payment.

The program provides generous cash accounts of over $6,000 to poor patients to fully cover deductible and co-pays.

FTA - Toward this end he proposes to shrink the federal work force by 10 percent and extend a salary freeze through 2015.

Does Rep. Paul Ryan understand that if as an employer you underpay the market you get the worst talent for the positions you need to fill? I guess not; it looks like P J O'Rourke is correct in saying that, and I'm paraphrasing here - Republicans run on the notion that Government doesn't work. Once they are elected they set out to prove it.

This is the same man who presented a GOP budget in 2009 that had no numbers. This is the same man who sent a healthcare reform plan to the CBO that was scored as increasing the deficit by one trillion dollars over 10 years. Nothing in Ryan's current budget ,which he knows for sure will not pass, grows the economy. This is another example of right wing social engineering that eliminates the social safety net while failing to grow the economy, failing to raise revenues, which will in turn cause the nations debt to rise,.

Yeah!! Now we can turn the discussion back to where it belongs. No more culture wars. Now we're attacking people like me, the almost seniors who have been paying into medicare and social security for decades.